3 Floral Design Ideas that Excite Me in 2022
Posted January 25, 2022
I refuse to say that these are the “trends” of 2022. Floral design is so individual, and all design styles are valid and worthy of expression. (Except for the ones that are bad for the environment.) So instead I will say that these are the design ideas that excite me as we head into the 2022 wedding season. I hope you find something in here that excites you too!
Perhaps these maximal-minimal arrangements first stemmed from the careful curation of ingredients in some ikebana designs, but if so, they have taken on a life of their own by moving away from minimal symbolism and into a wild mess of seasonal celebration. Because there are so few items, each one must be chosen with intention so that there is still a combination of shapes and textures and colors to delight the viewer’s eye. I stumbled across this idea through the work of brilliant designers like Max Gill and Anna Seva, who are masters of this design style.
Maximal Arrangements with
Minimal Ingredients
There are only 4 ingredients in this winter-to-spring arrangement: dried grass, jasmine, anemones, and narcissus (flowers and leaves).
Mismatched Tables but Cohesive Rooms
There are so many reasons a florist may have a few amazing pieces, but not a large enough set to decorate identical tables for 200 people. They're made by a hobby ceramicist who doesn't produce in large scale. They're from a street market in a foreign country that you’ll never visit again. They were found at an antiques shop made by a company that has long ceased to exist. (And, of course, it could just be the cost of amassing dozens or hundreds of an item.) For years I have thought these types of one-off pieces (like all my blue and white and clay colored bud vases collected during travels) couldn't be used in events, but maybe not anymore.
Mismatched design seems to have started with a simple idea like round tables having low, floral centerpieces and long tables having greenery garland. In the past few years, we began to see "cluster" centerpieces, where a mix of candles, bud vases, and larger arrangements were grouped on tables but never quite in the exact same way from table to table. But some florists and event designers have taken it to another level, where some "clusters" might have unique pieces that only appear once or twice throughout the whole room. Like how you decorate your home! It never looks like an Ikea showroom with perfect sets. It is items collected over a lifetime that look beautiful together. I love this idea applied to weddings too.
Were you inspired by any of these design ideas? If so, I hope you will try them out! And if you want to keep up with our incredibly infrequent blog posts, be sure to sign up for our newsletter below. Subscribers get an email notification for each post, so they never miss them!
Designing with ALL of the Natural World
This year I’m excited to draw from the parts of nature that we don’t always recognize the beauty in, like wood or rocks or water. There are lots of wonderful, creative designers exploring these elements, but there’s no one who has opened my mind more than Madison Hartley, who can make a stunning centerpiece with no actual flowers in it, and Sarah Winward, who is always drawing inspiration from her surroundings.
Fruit and vegetables are already widely used in centerpieces and table styling, but who's with me on a design of fallen leaves and rocks and mushrooms with maybe just a few flowers poking through, just like you would find on a hike in late fall.
